Occupational Hazards

  

All jobs have them. As a professor at a community college my biggest occupational hazard is avoiding the brownies students bring to the class potluck. Because unlike that trusting CU prof who ate the brownies that turned out to be laced with pot, I am both suspicious and experienced. In my speech class I’ve heard far too many persuasive speeches from students about why drugs should be legalized, which brings us to…

Occupational hazard #1: Class potluck food, which I avoid… but Wednesday night I couldn’t avoid a late night trip to the grocery store, which is where I found:

Occupational hazard #2: unexpected student encounters. There I was, tired and sick and running into the grocery store for some cold medicine when I ran into a student of mine. These encounters are always awkward and occasionally fear-inspiring, as when I ran into the student who had previously failed my class.

He was working as a valet at a restaurant where I pulled up in my car. I gave him my keys and hoped he wouldn’t wreck my ride. I also hoped he wouldn’t go through the glove compartment, find my address and egg my house. He did none of these things. And even gave me a hug at the end of the night, which was inappropriate but I considered it a win, all things considered. Because my job exposes me to all things inappropriate, including occupational hazard #3, which is…  

#3: unintended e-mails. Students these days are in touch with each other 24/7. They often like to be in touch with me 24/7 too. This means I get crazy amounts of e-mail from them about assignments, projects, tests, you name it.

Isn’t all this communication hard to manage for students? For some, yes. I found this out when I clicked open an e-mail from one of them and read the salutation “To my Nubian queen….”

Huh. This greeting wasn’t on the “approved list” for professional correspondence that I handed out. Neither was the rest of the message, which proved to be a scorching love letter. Clearly, the student had e-mailed it to me by mistake. This caused me an etiquette dilemma. Do you acknowledge the mistake? Do you copy edit for grammar? Do you ignore and avoid eye contact the remainder of the term? I chose the latter. 

I know my occupational hazards are definitely not as bad as the ones faced by, say, deep sea oil rig workers. But I’ve got ‘em. So do you.

What are your biggest occupational hazards? How do you handle them? Do tell (unless you’re that Russian blogger who keeps commenting on my posts and recommending that we check out his blog for male enhancements. Your occupational hazards, Russian blogger guy, we do not want to know about or your male enhancement products).